Neighborhood Built Research Articles

The Effect of the Neighborhood Built Environment on the Diets of Urban Children

The Effect of the Neighborhood Built Environment on the Diets of Urban Children

The Relationship of Neighbourhood Built Environment Features and Adult Parents' Walking

Research on urban design and walking often emphasizes macro-scale features of the physical environment, such as block length and number of intersections, that can be measured remotely using GIS and or aerial photographs. In contrast, urban designers emphasize the importance of micro-scale features in individuals' use and experience of neighbourhood environments. This paper moves beyond examining correlations of individual built environment features and walking, to begin to test proposals about which composite characteristics of the built environment (safety, comfort, etc.) may have the greatest impact on walking. Several urban design characteristics of 11 neighbourhoods throughout California were observed. Self-report, adult walking data on the number and types of walking trips were obtained from surveys administered to parents of 3rd–5th graders. Urban design features related to both accessibility and safety are associated with the amount of walking that adults do in their neighbourhoods. Grouping related urban design variables into indices provides some clarity as to how the built environment may impact walking. Safety emerges as the most important built environment characteristic (of those tested), related to both destination and recreational walking.

A Sight for Sore Eyes: Assessing the Value of View and Landscape Use on the Housing Market

We apply the hedonic model to the Geneva-Switzerland rental market, in order to assess the value of view and landscape use. In that purpose, we construct a large database of about 10 500 observations containing dwellings structural characteristics and combine it with environmental variables on noise and local air pollution exposure. Then, we make use of the Geneva geographic information system (GIS), in order to define landscape uses and patterns in the neighbourhood of the buildings. Finally, we define several variables in order to quantify the view at the dwelling level. We find that accessibility to various environmental amenities, landscape use and size, as well as view on them have a statistically significant impact on rents. In particular, the size and the view on the natural environment increase rents, while they lower rents in the case of the built environment. We also find that diversity in landscape uses in the building neighbourhood has a negative impact on rents, while possessing a diverse view from the dwelling increases rents.

Sense of place in the neighborhood, in locations of urban revitalization

Every neighborhood has its particular sense of place, resulting from its physical structure and its sociological make-up. When new housing developments are built in or adjacent to old neighborhoods, a different sense of place will exist in the new development and in the adjacent old environment, with mutual effects between the two. This study has used ethnographic analysis of interviews with women living in six different new developments and in adjacent buildings in the old neighborhoods, to identify the behavioral and affective variables that make up the local sense of place. A methodology has subsequently been developed to determine the sense of place in any residential environment, based on ethnographic analysis of the descriptions of the residential environment by its residents, while focusing on the evaluation of a number of predetermined behavioral and affective variables that together define the sense of place. Comparison of the sense of place between different residential environments could enable the identification of the effects of various social factors and the physical environment on the sense of place, the conclusions of which could be of use in the planning of new housing developments, particularly if located in old neighborhoods.

Watsonville/Circles in the Dirt (review)

Reviewed by: Watsonville/Circle in the Dirt Lisa B. Thompson Watsonville/Circle in the Dirt. By Cherríe Moraga. Albuquerque: West End Press, 2002; pp. ix + 165. $15.95 cloth. Cherríe Moraga has spent her writing career documenting the undocumented, from coediting This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981), an anthology that helped define Third World feminism, to Loving in the War Years: Lo que nunca pasó por sus labios (1983), a path-breaking collection of essays and poems that passionately articulate a Chicana lesbian feminist subjectivity. Similarly, her contribution to Latino/a theatre maintains a feminist viewpoint. In The Wounded Heart: Writings on Cherríe Moraga (2001), Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano argues that the writer's early plays—Giving up the Ghost (1989), Shadow of a [End Page 523] Man (1990), and Heroes and Saints (1992)—changed American drama "by insisting on Chicano lives and Chicano language as appropriate matter for the theatre, and by creating Chicanas as desiring subjects . . . . [Moraga] invites Chicanos, including Chicanas and Chicana lesbians, to take up the ideal spectator position monopolized for so long by white, heterosexual, and economically privileged viewers" (25). That trilogy foreshadowed Moraga's later work. In her recently published plays, Watsonville: Some Place Not Here (1996) and Circle in the Dirt: El Pueblo de East Palo Alto (1995), she continues to show the relationship between domestic/private concerns and public/political ones. The plays are set in public spaces (streets, fields, work sites) and confront economically, politically charged matters such as the treatment of immigrants, youths and labor. Both plays also ponder the notion of "home for the dispossessed" (44). Although Moraga conducted extensive interviews with the inhabitants of East Palo Alto, and bases Watsonville "loosely on three actual events that took place in a central California coastal farm worker town by the same name," she does not use her research in expected ways (4). Unlike documentary theatre practices by playwrights such as Anna Deavere Smith, who use edited interviews verbatim, the voices Moraga listened to while researching the plays merge with her own. The result is drama with vibrant dialogue and compelling, diverse characters. In the foreword Moraga speaks of California's newly emerging majority population and the fear and resistance mounted against them by the powerful. Nearly a decade after Moraga's fieldwork, both places have changed, with East Palo Alto nearly unrecognizable as a result of regentrification. However, Moraga recovers the vanishing histories of these impoverished Californian towns. Circle in the Dirt, "created from, and inspired by, the stories of the residents of East Palo Alto," occurs during the day that developers have scheduled the demolition of two neighborhood buildings (111). The conversations between neighbors expose the tensions between a difficult past and uncertain future. Although they reminisce about national events ranging from the Depression and Vietnam War to segregation and the Black Power Movement, Moraga avoids nostalgia. Events assumed to be worthy of celebration are called into question. For instance, an older black woman questions the benefits of school integration because children "improved academically, but psychologically . . . their souls were just dying" (130). The play suggests that progress that fails to empower citizens alienates them instead. Moraga goes beyond illustrating the displacement of the poor and challenges the perception of home as an uncomplicated site. Each character's claim on the land gives way to prior ones as memories unfold. Neither an elderly white couple, a middle-aged Mexican immigrant, nor the twelve-year-old Samoan girl can justify their feelings of displacement once La Capitana, an aging and ageless Muwekma Mexican Indian, arrives. She explains how Stanford, the neighboring university, housed the remains of her ancestors, who first inhabited the area now recognized as East Palo Alto. The conclusion gestures towards survival. Returning the dead and seeds of corn to the earth once the demolition uproots the ground insures that the cycle of life continues. The three-act play Watsonville: Some Place Not Here incorporates music (including several original compositions), such as bolero, cumbia, and rap in the dramatization of a cannery strike in the rural town near Santa Cruz. Although realism dominates the piece, the appearance of the Virgen de...

Opening doors and building capacity: employing a community-based approach to surveying.

Although many community-based initiatives employ community residents to undertake door-to-door surveys as a form of community mobilization or for purposes of needs assessment or evaluation, very little has been published on the strengths and weaknesses of this approach. This article discusses our experience in undertaking such a survey in collaboration with a coalition of community-based organizations (CBOs) in the South Bronx, New York. Although resource constraints limited the already-strained capacity of the CBOs to provide supervision, the CBOs and community surveyors helped us gain access to neighborhood buildings and to individuals who might otherwise have been inaccessible. The survey process also contributed to the coalition's community outreach efforts and helped to link the CBO leadership and staff more closely to the coalition and its mission. Many of the surveyors enhanced their knowledge and skills in ways that have since benefited them or the coalition directly. The participating CBOs continue to be deeply engaged in the coalition's work, and many of the surveyors are active as community health advocates and have taken leadership roles within the coalition.

Using community power against targets beyond the neighborhood

Much community organizing is targeted at local power‐holders—landlords, business owners, city officials. For this reason, many believe that community organizing cannot make significant social change—but sometimes community organizations are able to transcend their local focus and force policy changes at the municipal, state or national level. The Northwest Bronx Community Coalition's campaign against the overfinancing of neighborhood buildings by Freddie Mac is a successful example of a community organization transcending these limits. This article focuses on how the Coalition solved two strategic problems particular to this campaign: the difficulty of mobilizing tenants against a distant target whose impact on their daily lives was indirect and complicated; and the difficulty of exerting influence on a far‐off, national target. These are difficulties more and more community organizations will face, as the increasing chain‐store saturation of neighborhoods and globalization of our economy brings the influence of national and global entities closer to the daily life of communities.

Building an Organization to Practice Anthropology: Process and Challenges

Urban Anthropology Inc. was founded three and one-half years ago as a nonprofit membership organization to practice anthropology in urban areas in southeastern Wisconsin. The projects that have been funded and implemented by UrbAn since our founding fall under three categories. The first is an umbrella program called Milwaukee History-Up Close and Personal. Under this program, UrbAn personnel conduct a series of ethnographic studies on local cultural groups in Milwaukee, then summarize these in professional-quality documentaries. These videos then act as centerpieces for programs on local cultural history offered through Marquette University and several community-based organizations in Milwaukee. The second program category is our Neighborhood Building effort. Under this umbrella, UrbAn personnel work with local organizations to develop neighborhood oral histories, community gardens, nature/ecology programs, and public squares for social and cultural programming. The third umbrella category is our Working Anthropologists effort. Here we work with local universities, businesses, and community organizations to promote the benefits that anthropologists can bring to the community. Our goals under the latter project are both to increase job opportunities for anthropologists locally and to increase the beneficial practices of anthropology in southeastern Wisconsin.

Changing Water and Sewer Finance: Distributional Impacts and Effects on the Viability of Affordable Housing

Usage-based charges finance an increasing share of water and sewer costs in the U.S. The shift has been especially sharp in New York City, where residential users traditionally did not pay usage-based charges. In this article, we examine the impact that a transition to universal metered billing would have on multifamily housing. We find that universal metering would result in large increases in water and sewer bills for many multifamily buildings in low-income neighborhoods. Comparing the predicted increases with the net operating income of landlords in low-income neighborhoods indicates that universal metering might pose a threat to the viability of much affordable housing.

Sustainability and planning: does urban form matter?

This paper deals with the difficult relation between urban form, travel behaviour and sustainable development. In more developed countries, the influence of governments on urban form can be considerable through planning. Modern planning theory focuses mainly on procedural aspects. It is argued in this paper that substantive aspects cannot be neglected if sustainable solutions are being pursued. For making urban land-use planning more sustainable, it is essential to have insight into the relationships between the urban "users" and their surroundings. This is outlined by presenting some survey results on the additional role of the spatial context on household behaviour. The survey was conducted among households in the region of Amersfoort in the Netherlands. The results provide some empirical evidence that household behaviour is related to urban form, although in a complex way. Reasonably more energy-intensive and therefore less sustainable household practices were observed at the urban outskirts more than in the rural area, whereas differences according to neighbourhood building design were inappreciable.

An Empowerment Model for Building Neighborhood Community:

Innovative approaches are needed to address the disintegration of many marginalized communities. A community-empowerment model is presented focusing on developing neighborhood structures and empowering neighborhood residents by building on their strengths and creating resources. A case description of Grace Hill Neighborhood Services illustrates the model's key components and processes.

Community‐based home and neighbourhood building: An interview with John Turner

John F. C. Turner was one of four joint recipients of the 1988 Right Livelihood Award (sometimes known as the Alternative Nobel Prize) in 1988. In this interview, which took place in Stockholm prior to the ceremony, John Turner explains his views on community‐based home and neighbourhood building, primarily in the context of the Third World. Turner's general thesis is that housing is best provided and managed by the occupants themselves and that the state should play an enabling role, while the private market should provide appropriate technology. He argues that industrialized countries have much to learn from rapidly urbanizing and newly industrializing countries concerning the provision and management of housing by people themselves.

Building Neighborhood Organizations

Building Neighborhood Organizations

Building Neighborhood Organizations.

Building Neighborhood Organizations.

Book Reviews

Abstract Abstract Industrial Policies for Growth and Competitiveness: An Economic Perspective F. Gerald Adams and Lawrence R. Klein, editors. Lexington Books, Lexington, Mass., 1982. 434 pp. $33.95. MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925-1975 Chalmers Johnson. Stanford University Press, Stanford, Calif., 1982. 393 pp. $10.95 (paperback). The Work Revolution: The Future of Work in the Post-Industrial Society Gail Garfield Schwartz and William Neikirk. Rawson Associates, New York, 1983. 255 pp. $14.95. Rethinking Urban Policy: Urban Development in an Advanced Economy Royce Hanson, editor. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1983. 229 pp. $16.95 (paperback). An Immodest Agenda: Rebuilding America Before the 21st Century Amitai Etzioni. McGraw-Hill, New York, 1983. 418 pp. $26.95. The Twenty-Year Century: Essays on Economics and Public Finance Felix G. Rohatyn. Random House, Inc., New York, 1984. 175 pp. $12.95. Introduction to Planning History in the United States Donald A. Krueckeberg, editor. Center for Urban Policy Research, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., 1983. 315 pp. $12.95 (paperback). The Economic Crisis and American Society Manuel Castells. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1980. 285 pp. $24.00 (cloth), $7.95 (paperback). The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-Cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements Manuel Castells. University of California Press, Berkeley, Calif., 1983. 450 pp. $29.95. Land Use Issues of the 1980s James H. Carr and Edward Duensing, editors. Center for Urban Policy Research, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., 1983. 325 pp. $12.95 (paperback). Housing—A Reader Morton J. Schussheim, editor. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, 1983. 184 pp. np. (paperback). America's Housing Crisis—What Is To Be Done? Chester Hartman, editor. Routledge and Kegan Paul, Boston, 1983. 249 pp. $19.95. Tenants and the American Dream Allan David Heskin. Praeger Publishers, New York, 1983. 290 pp. $31.95 (cloth), $5.50 (paperback). Housing Rehabilitation: Economic, Social, and Policy Perspectives David Listokin, editor. Center for Urban Policy Research, New Brunswick, N.J., 1983. 380 pp. $12.95 (paperback). Rental Housing in the 1980s Anthony Downs. The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 1983. 202 pp. $26.95 (cloth), $11.95 (paperback). Drinking Water Supplies: Protection Through Watershed Management Raymond J. Burby, Edward J. Kaiser, Todd L Miller, and David H. Moreau. Ann Arbor Science, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1983. 273 pp. $29.95. Energy in the Finite World International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. Ballinger Publishers, Cambridge, Mass., 1981. Two volumes: Energy in the Finite World: Paths to a Sustainable Future, 256 pp., $25; Energy in the Finite World: A Global Systems Analysis, 880 pp., $50. Set $65. Building Neighborhood Organizations James V. Cunningham and Milton Kotler. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Ind., 1983. 198 pp. $15.95 (cloth), $7.95 (paperback). Community Organizing: Theory and Practice Douglas P. Biklen. Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1983. 321 pp. $24.95 (cloth). Families, Politics, and Public Policy: A Feminist Dialogue on Women and the State Irene Diamond, editor. Longman, Inc., New York, 1983. 372 pp. $15.95 (paperback). Revitalizing America's Cities: Neighborhood Reinvestment and Displacement Michael H. Schill and Richard P. Nathan. State University of New York Press, Albany, N.Y., 1983.184 pp. $29.50 (cloth), $9.95 (paperback). City Money: Political Processes, Fiscal Strain, and Retrenchment Terry Clark and Lorna Ferguson. Columbia University Press, New York, 1983. 440 pp. $37.50 (cloth), $15.00 (paperback). Secondary Cities in Developing Countries: Policies and Diffusing Urbanization Dennis A. Rondinelli. Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, Calif., 1983. 288 pp. $28.00 (cloth), $14.00 (paperback). Proposition 2½: Its Impact on Massachusetts Lawrence E. Susskind and Jane Fountain Serio, editors. Oelgeschlager, Gunn & Hain Publishers, Inc., Cambridge, Mass., 1983. 530 pp. $15.00 (paperback). Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics Hubert L. Dreyfus and Pal Rabinow, with an afterword by Michel Foucault. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1982. 231 pp. $25.00. Metropolitan Housing Needs for the 1980s John C. Weicher, Lorene Yap, and Mary S. Jones. Urban Institute Press, Washington, 1982. 138 pp. $16.50. Metropolitan Corridor: Railroads and the American Scene John R. Stilgoe. Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn., 1983. 397 pp. $29.95. Equity and Energy: Rising Energy Prices and the Living Standards of Lower-Income Americans Mark N. Cooper, Theodore T. Sullivan, Susan Punnett, and Ellen Berman. Westview Press, Boulder, Colo., 1983. 302 pp. $22.50 (paperback). Hazardous Waste in America Samuel S. Epstein, Lester O. Brown, and Carl Pope. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, Calif., 1983. 608 pp. $12.95 (paperback). Design for Arid Regions Gideon S. Golany, editor. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1983. 334 pp. $34.50. Economics and Policymaking: The Tragic Illusion Eugene Meehan. Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn., 1982. 208 pp. $27.50. The Book of American City Rankings John Tepper Marlin and James S. Avery. Facts on File Publications, New York, 1983. 369 pp. $29.95.

Goetze, Rolf, "Building Neighbourhood Confidence: A Humanistic Strategy for Urban Housing" (Book Review)

Goetze, Rolf, "Building Neighbourhood Confidence: A Humanistic Strategy for Urban Housing" (Book Review)